Akos Gergely
Posts: 733
Joined: 4/8/2004 From: Hungary, Bp. Status: offline
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I admit I'm a huge fan of the Montanas, but with all due respect that 5 knots loss was more than worth it, since CV TFs rarely operated for more than 25 knots continously, only perhaps in air actions. Would there have been a surface attack against the US fleet CVs then the Montanas' task would have been to fend off the attack, not to run away with the CVs... IMHO burst speed is nice to have, even in a gunnery engagement, but if you do have 10 inches of deck armour plus 16" of sides, married with 12 of those extremely powerful 16"/50 Mark 7s there really is no need to dictate the range, not to mention that the very long and narrow bow required for the high speed might easily be damaged, cutting the speed advantage. Cruising speed and radius is much more important, especially in the Pacific. So to put it in an other way, would you like to be on a Montana or an Iowa in a hypothetical battle between them? I sure would like to be on that 60kton+ monster
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